Shock Lobster: Company Invents Lobster Stunning Machine

With the increased use of tasers on humans, it was perhaps inevitable that the crustacean set would demand their own stunning device. Simon Buckhaven of CrustaStun has developed a system that allows lobsters to be zapped to death in a device rather than boiled alive. It was such a breakthrough that animal rights groups organized a lobster dinner fundraiser with lobsters dispatched with the CrustaStun device. The problem is that the machines were lost in transit and the sponsors had to boil hundreds of lobsters alive at the event with such participating groups as PETA.

Buckhaven developed the machine to appease animal rights advocates who like lobsters but not the method of cooking.

The machines cost about $3,500 and looks like a microwave with a lid.

They also have an industrial version for $100,000 or more.

If you cannot afford that price, you can always report the lobster in your home as “unruly” and Fort Smith police will take it from there — be sure however to have butter ready by the time the cruiser arrives.

[Update: PETA contacted the blog to say that they did not organize the event and did not know the lobsters were sent to a boiling end]

I had a culinary arts teacher who insisted that we put the lobsters in the freezer for 5 minutes, take them out and stab them in the head and bring the knife down through their backs and then turn the knife around and finish splitting the head in two.

I don’t think that that was for a normal “toss in the pot” and cook, I think we were doing some other recipe with it (I didn’t pay attention, as I don’t like lobster).

It seems like that technique of using a good sized knife to slice their “head” in half is pretty standard on Food TV shows.

On the fish side of things, there’s some interesting research into techniques for dispatching fish with the aim of improving the flavor and quality by minimizing stress on the fish as it is being killed:

I can’t find the link at the moment, but I recently read something about a chef in China who had developed a technique for frying the body of a whole fish, while sort of keeping the fish “alive”. It included a video of the batter dipped, fried fish that was still opening and closing its mouth… uh, yummy?